A barbaric killing carried out by "volatile" Keith Jones could have been predicted, a murder trial jury was told.

Jones, 33, was known to be unpredictable and a high public risk years before he bludgeoned an innocent disabled man to death, Teesside Crown Court heard.

He beat 62-year-old Robert "Jack" Carter to death using the victim's crutch and a table leg in the MS sufferer's home in Sandmoor Road, New Marske, on January 4.

The jury is expected to start considering its verdict on Monday. Jones denies murder, but admits manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Defence barrister Tim Roberts QC pointed to numerous warnings of his behaviour, including the "prophetic" words of a 2003 report, which stated an event causing serious harm could happen at any time.

He said: "This was a volatile, unpredictable person at large in society. This was a predictable crime."

The bloody scene showed an abnormal chaotic mind at work, he said. The savage attack which fractured the wheelchair-bound victim's skull and broke facial bones was "unthinkable" and "beyond human imagining".

He said Jones' violence, sparked by a disagreement over his rudeness to a phone caller, was "off the scale" of normal behaviour.

After the killing, he went to the Royal pub in Redcar "euphoric and high on life", still wearing his blood-spattered T-shirt. Three people declined his invitations back to the house and he was found asleep in bed the next morning.

"This is not normal," said Mr Roberts.

He appeared in court every year except one since he was 14. Charges included 12 offences against people.

Mr Carter was not told of his violent tendencies by Jones' mother, an occasional carer for him, who had suggested her homeless son as a lodger.

Prosecutor Jeremy Richardson QC said: "I have no doubt whatever that she regards that as one of the most awful mistakes of her life. One can feel for her, the agony she must feel about that decision."

He said Jones's responsibility for the crime was "not substantially impaired" by his personality disorder.

"He lost it and he killed the defenceless Jack Carter, sat there in his wheelchair in his own home, and brutally killed him at that."

He pointed to consultant psychiatrist Dr Kim Fraser's evidence that Jones' actions were in anger, rather than driven by abnormal thoughts of a disordered mind.